Sergey played some outstanding chess today, for the last five games. Sergey won against Ivanchuk, Radjabov, Kazhgaleyev, Svidler and a draw against Kurnosov was enough to secure the title. The start of the day was lucky as Vasily felt on time in a much better endgame. The rest was "clean", the technique of Sergey in endgames made him score import ants victories over Radjabov and Svidler.

In the meantime, Magnus Carlsen had a black day.The World number one lost twice, against Vasily Ivanchuk and Alexander Grischuk. He might have even lost a third game in the 15th game, if Veselin Topalov wouldn't have missed a mate in 5 moves in time trouble!

Veselin, with a possible win against Carlsen, would have been second alone. Making only draw, Veselin was caught by "Shak" Mamedyarov, who a winning strike with 3,5/5 today!

Tomorrow starts the blitz world championship, with 15 games to be played, and 15 others after tomorrow.

Today was the day of Magnus Carlsen. Sharing first place at the begin of the day, Magnus is finishing clear first with 1,5 point in front of Karjakin and Topalov (+7, 3)! The Norwegian wonder kid had an impressive score, and possess 8,5/10. His last two victories are typical from what we see so far: not a big advantage after the opening, but putting pressure until the end.

On round 9 against Vlad Tkachiev, Magnus managed to get something out of nothing, taking finally control of the "c" line and eventually won it. The crucial game of the day was the 10th round, and last of the day, playing against his direct opponent for the title : Sergey Karjakin. Sergey just suffered a loss against Mamedyarov in the previous round and didn't recover fully. In a very complicated middle game, players arrived in a drawish endgame.

With a huge time trouble, Sergey didn't find the best line and to give up a rook+bishop+pawns endgame. The former FIDE world champion (2005) Veselin Topalov is sharing 2nd-3rd place, beating nicely Svidler on round 9. He could have even more point without a loss against Murtas Kahzgaleyev in the previous game.

We can notice the fighting spirit of Ismagambatov Anuar, 2491 rating, scoring in the last two rounds against Gelfand and Tkachiev.

Tomorrow are the last 5 rounds, and we still a lots of fights to come.

Round 10 results

Board

Total

S.No.

White

Result

Black

S.No.

Total

Board

1

8.5

16

Carlsen, Magnus

1 - 0

Karjakin, Sergey

13

7.0

1

2

4.5

14

Ivanchuk, Vassily

0 - 1

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

12

6.0

2

3

5.5

15

Radjabov, Teimour

½ - ½

Dreev, Aleksey

11

5.5

3

4

4.0

1

Kazhgaleyev, Murtas

0 - 1

Bologan, Viktor

10

3.0

4

5

5.0

2

Svidler, Peter

0 - 1

Morozevich, Alexander

9

4.0

5

6

5.0

3

Kurnosov, Igor

0 - 1

Topalov, Veselin

8

7.0

6

7

4.5

4

Gelfand, Boris

½ - ½

Grischuk, Alexander

7

5.5

7

8

3.0

5

Tkachiev, Vladislav

0 - 1

Ismagambetov, Anuar

6

2.0

8

Cross table - round 10

No.

Title

Name

Fed.

FIDE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Total

1

GM

Carlsen, Magnus

NOR

2837

1

1

½

1

½

½

1

1

1

1

8.5

2

GM

Karjakin, Sergey

RUS

2779

0

½

0

1

1

1

½

1

1

1

7.0

3

GM

Topalov, Veselin

BUL

2752

½

1

1

½

1

1

½

1

0

½

7.0

4

GM

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

AZE

2726

0

1

0

0

½

1

1

1

½

1

6.0

5

GM

Radjabov, Teimour

AZE

2788

0

1

½

1

½

½

½

0

½

1

5.5

6

GM

Grischuk, Alexander

RUS

2763

0

1

0

1

½

0

½

½

1

1

5.5

7

GM

Dreev, Aleksey

RUS

2677

½

0

½

½

½

0

1

1

½

1

5.5

8

GM

Kurnosov, Igor

RUS

2605

0

0

0

½

½

1

½

1

½

1

5.0

9

GM

Svidler, Peter

RUS

2749

½

0

½

1

½

½

0

½

½

1

5.0

10

GM

Gelfand, Boris

ISR

2724

½

0

½

½

0

½

1

½

1

0

4.5

11

GM

Ivanchuk, Vassily

UKR

2769

½

0

½

0

½

0

½

1

½

1

4.5

12

GM

Morozevich, Alexander

RUS

2770

0

½

0

0

½

0

1

½

½

1

4.0

13

GM

Kazhgaleyev, Murtas

KAZ

2537

0

1

0

0

½

½

½

0

½

1

4.0

14

GM

Bologan, Viktor

MDA

2732

0

0

½

0

1

0

½

0

0

1

3.0

15

GM

Tkachiev, Vladislav

FRA

2644

0

0

½

½

½

½

0

½

½

0

3.0

16

GM

Ismagambetov, Anuar

KAZ

2491

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

1

2.0

Day 1

The rapid world chess championship has started and we had a great fights in each of the first five rounds of the tournament. Playing venue in the Radisson is just superb, live transmission allows internet users to watch theses 16 great champions live!

Sergey Karjakin arrived lately in the night, missing his plane, but the Russian player showed some incredible chess today, scoring an impressive 4,5/5, drawing the 5th round peacefully against Topalov. The most technical and impressive victory of Sergey might be his fourth game against Grischuk, making a beautiful queen sacrifice (Nxf5!) to mate his opponent.

Sergey is sharing the 1st place with the world number one Magnus Carlsen. As usual, Magnus is playing all the positions until the end, as his last game against Kurnosov showed. A drawish endgame which ended eventually by trapping the white's knight. Peter Svidler was putting a lot of problems to Magnus, but the Norwegian player finally managed to escape in the last seconds of the game.

Three players are sharing the 3rd place : Grischuk, Topalov and Radjabov. Despite a defeat against his compatriot, Grischuk had a great day, starting with a perfect 3/3. Radjabov was very solid as usual, remains undefeated. Dreev, player issued from qualification, is making a great impression beating Morozevich in a great style.

Strange day for Morozevich which started badly loosing to Topalov and Carlsen, and couldn't recover. Anyhow, tournament is still very long and it's clearly too early to draw conclusions so far. Show must go on!

Nurlan Nigmatulin, Speaker of the Parliament of the Kazakhstan Republic